Joe Dolce: ‘Vitis Vinifera’

Vitis Vinifera

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticism of the sober hours. —William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Did a drunken Noah receive instructions
or was the gopherwood felled in sober hours?
Vinum fueled the songs of Homer,
the poetry of Alcman,
brimmed Tutankhamun’s amphora.
Maurya practiced tantra on madhu.
Certain Sunni Hanafi ferment
dates for medicinal purposes.
The Kiddush sanctifies four cups,
a Rabbinical obligation on Pesach.

King James anointed wine a mocker,
beer the brawler’s inebriation,
a symbol of God’s wrath,
yet Jesus’ first miracle turned it,
glasses lifted at the Supper.

Fingering clay figurines of Bacchus,
Romans planted the vineyards of Bordeaux.

Joe Dolce